


Light Enough to See

by whereismygarden



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 01:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little snippet of life in the Dark Castle, from Belle's early days there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light Enough to See

The Dark Castle was not as dark as Belle had expected it to be. Gloomy it was, to be sure, especially in the corners, but there was light enough to see its treasures. That might have been the intent of her new master, who was simultaneously proud and scornful of his prizes. Everything he had had been dear to someone once, maybe hundreds of years or scant months ago. That was what he prized, all the attachment, the love that pooled on these things, palpable as cobwebs or oil. Whether it was magical or just her fancy, Belle could swear she felt the _meaning_ of a vase or sword slipping beneath her fingers as she dusted.

               

                She wondered, when the thought didn’t scare her, what she was to him. Tales of the Dark One, the baby-snatcher, preceded him, and she knew first-hand that he would trade power for a human life, yet never once had she seen him with a child. All those girls who promised him their firstborn children, and she had never seen one of the babes. Logic told her that he must trade them again, to the barren, but it was not a comforting thought. Besides being a despicable practice, such children must grow up in turmoil, doomed to be heroes or madmen. Such was the pattern of tales.

 

                So what was she? Not an infant, traded for safety and victory. She had struck the deal herself, taken the Dark One’s arm, and he had laughed: still she couldn’t puzzle out his laughs. She felt they were his way of hiding something, but part of her was afraid to discover what exactly that something was. Maybe he kept her with him so he could feel in her what she felt in all his dusty relics. Love kept within the heart must be stronger than love left in little traces on a shoe or locket.

 

                Lost in thought, she rubbed her dustrag too hard over the blade of an axe and sliced through the worn cloth, into her palm. A line of dark red, scarcely recognizable as blood in the dim room, widened on her hand. She stared dumbly at it for a few seconds, then realization struck. The pain, now acknowledged, was considerable: a stinging and pulling sensation. Belle yelped quietly and pressed the cleanest part of the dustrag against the cut, cupping her hand. The thought that she might open it further and lengthen the tear made her stomach clench and knees weaken.

               

                It would need to be cleaned and stitched. She had spent the last year of her life on a war front: a few stitches wouldn’t be too hard. Blood seeped through the cloth and dripped onto the floor.

               

                “Damn,” she said quietly. It was bleeding a lot, and even if she had been able to endure sewing her own flesh- she was almost certain she could have- it was her dominant hand she had injured. Winding the cloth tighter and standing up, she hurried for the kitchen. Outside the kitchen door was the overgrown remains of a garden. Rumpelstiltskin used it for his potions, she thought, but more than weeds and poison remained. She remembered seeing the distinctive yellow blossoms of yarrow waving in the breeze outside. That, plus a better bandage, would have to do.

 

                She had drawn a pail of water earlier that morning, and she ladled it slowly over the cut, wincing. Snatching up a clean towel, she pressed that back to the cut and stepped outside, peering around the garden for the yarrow. 

 

                “What’s the matter, dearie?” Belle jumped, uninjured hand flying to her mouth. Rumpelstiltskin was standing behind her, hands behind his back and smiling slightly.

 

                “Just a little cut,” she said, unwilling for some reason to show him her hand. He stepped forward, stretching his hands out and taking hers with surprising gentleness. He tossed the bloody towel to the ground and turned her palm upwards. Rumpelstiltskin tsked softly, raising his eyebrows.

                “That’s a nasty cut, dearie, how’d you manage that?”

               

“Cleaning off that axe of yours,” Belle said, as graciously as she could force herself to speak. He frowned and passed his hand over the gash. She felt a tingling that extended through her body, as if her veins and nothing else had been dipped in an icy pond. The wound was gone, with not even a scar to mark it.

 

                “Thank you,” she said quietly. He giggled and fluttered his fingers at her, practically jumping backwards and schooling his face into disinterest.

 

                “It’s no bother. Can’t be having my housekeeper bleeding all over my things, can I?” Belle smiled a little, feeling she had figured out a piece of the strange, kind, cruel man she was stuck with.

 

                “You did it to be nice,” she said, and truly smiled at him. He simply raised an eyebrow, grinned madly, and swept off into the castle. Belle watched him go, filing away somewhere, to be thought about and puzzled over later, the knowledge that her master, the dark and powerful sorcerer, had a few shreds of kindness inside him.

 

                The Dark Castle, perhaps, was only as dark as its master. Belle flexed her hand and considered that bringing light was not a bad task to add to her dusting and washing.


End file.
